Stayed at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa for a couple of nights on our way back from Borneo. Heard it was overrun with Chinese and Korean’s but I looked at other places on Gaya Island and you have to worry about ferry schedules and just decided to stay somewhere close to the airport since we’d done a lot of travel on our Borneo tour.
Have to say that Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa was a very welcome stay after staying at some pretty rank hotels like Bilit Rainforest Lodge and the Grace Hotel Lahad Datu. Very quick check-in, just a couple of minutes. We got a room in the Kota Kinabalu room which was supposed to have a mountain view but they put us in the furthest room possible which was essentially a corner room so had a bit of a view looking into Kota Kinabalu over some water and Kota Kinabalu, although never saw that due to cloud.
The room was a good size, big bathroom, good shower, nice amenities, big comfy bed and well everything you could ask for. Whilst being in the furthest room possible, this was actually good because it’s quieter and away from the crowds. When you stay at a few shit hotels you really appreciate staying in a decent hotel, which you can take for granted. The Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa is not absolute luxury but is more than sufficient. No complaints at all about the room. Two big wardrobes to store shit, a big drawer and loads of space to put all your camera’s, tech, clothes, toiletries and a large balcony.
Yeah, Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa is crawling with Koreans but the don’t bother you at all and in fact provide some entertainment as they must have been going for a couple of world records. The world record in threat would be most amount of grown Korean adults wearing life jackets in a swimming pool at one time, which surely they must have broken. The next would be most amount of Korean men wearing speedo shorts with tiny packages, which they also must have come close to breaking. Oh, and a third, would have to be most amount of Korean girls wearing make up in a swimming pool whilst taking photos of each other. It’s good comedy though and they don’t seem to care at all.
Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa has great facilities and many things to do including all the water sports, kids room, gym, golf, table tennis, volleyball and a big pool. There’s a beach with a nice sunset where you can find further world record attempts, and whilst there’s barely a white face in the resort, most guests are quiet and stick to themselves and won’t bother you. This would be one of the better Shangri-La’s I’ve stayed at and as with the rest of our trip in Borneo, the service here is overall pretty good. However, because the vast majority of people staying here can’t swim, you can’t get up to too much fun. Took Grobbler and I all of 1 minute to get off for going down the water slides backwards. I was severely reprimanded and reminded that there was CCTV operating! Normally I’d have told him to F off and chill out but I just laughed at him, to which he wasn’t that happy.
The resort has boats on the hour that take you Island hopping, but knowing they’d be full of tourists, and because it was my birthday, I forked out for a private boat for two hours and he just took us around the good snorkelling spots. The snorkelling was pretty ordinary, nothing compared to Komodo, Bohol and not as good as Fiji, which was mediocre.
Food at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa was pretty good, but we could have eaten prison food and appreciated it after having to endure the food at Bilit Rainforest Lodge. First night I had a steak and Grobbler had some pizza, both of which were fine, better than average. Breakfast was your usual SE Asian Shangri-La, large selection of western and asian options and overall one of the better breakfasts you could hope for. Lot of people with the hotel at 90% occupancy but they’ve got a big breakfast with plenty of tables and space and you shouldn’t have to wait.
We hired a private speedboat which was rather, understandably rather costly, but worth it as you don’t have to deal with other people. Got taken to three separate areas for snorkelling, none of which were that great but if you haven’t done much snorkelling before you’ll find it fine. We’ve been snorkelling in Bohol, Fiji and Komodo the last few months and it’s hard to compete with those, especially Komodo, which was incredible. We could have done it on the morning of the last day again but it wasn’t really worth it.
Got a late check out at 1p.m, had some lunch (at the beach bar) then off to the airport. The staff here are in general, excellent, particularly the staff at the beach bar and although I wouldn’t be in a hurry to come back to Kota Kinabalu, I’d recommend staying here if you’re thinking about a trip here or have to stay while doing your Borneo trip. The food is good (better than good), beach is ok, good swimming pool and as long as you don’t mind the hundreds of Korean’s who can’t swim, the resort has excellent facilities and is overall very good. A great way to finish off a trip to Borneo, maybe stay 3 nights and a spend a couple of full days here.
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